NORTHERN RAILWAY WORKS INCESSANTLY TO KEEP DEMU TRAINS OPERATIONAL THROUGH THE YEAR IN KASHMIR VALLEY REGION

NORTHERN RAILWAY WORKS INCESSANTLY TO KEEP DEMU TRAINS OPERATIONAL THROUGH THE YEAR IN KASHMIR VALLEY REGION

MAKESHIFT MECHANICAL MAINTENANCE UNIT AT UDHAMPUR UNDERTAKES ROUND-THE –CLOCK EFFORTS TO DISMANTLE & WELD SPECIAL DEMU COACHES FOR o­nWARD TRANSPORT WHILE MECHANICAL UNIT AT BUDGAM MEASURES UP WITH SPECIAL EFFORTS TO UNFASTEN AND ASSEMBLE UNITS TO MEET DEMANDS FOR ENHANCED RAIL SERVICES

Northern Railway works incessantly to keep DEMU trains operational through the year in the Kashmir valley region. Travel by rail remains a sought-after service in the Kashmir Valley region. Designed to suit all-weather challenges, the Special DEMU trains are very popular amongst the local people as the journey through DEMU takes less than half the time taken by road travel and cost less than o­ne third than by any other mode of local mass transport. DEMU trains cater to the daily travel needs of residents of the Kashmir region especially as road traffic grinds to a halt in snow-laden conditions and the Jammu connecting Jawahar Tunnel facing congestion to cope up with heavy traffic flow o­n both sides. In keeping with the compelling needs of the residents of the Kashmir Valley region, Northern Railway has stepped up DEMU services in the Kashmir Valley recently adding two pairs of DEMU trains to the existing fleet of 11 pairs of DEMU trains thus marking of 26 trains both Up and Down in the region. These DEMU services run all 365 days in a year even when the roads are blocked due to heavy snow fall and land-slides barring a few occasions in the year when the DEMU services remained inoperative due to floods or boulders falling on track.

To complement to the regional mobility, the Integral Coach Factory of Railways at Chennai manufactured 2 DEMU rakes with 8 coaches each especially for the Kashmir rail services. As seamless connectivity with the rest of the Indian Railways network is still under progress o­n the Katra – Banihal (110.30km) rail section, transport of DEMU coaches through road remains the o­nly mode of moving these coaches o­n to the rail line section in the Kashmir Valley region. As at present there is no rail connectivity from Udhampur to Banihal, hence coaches are required to be moved from Udhampur to Budgam by road after partial dismantling of coaches at Udhampur. Railway personnel swing into action round-the-clock to make stock suitable to movement by trailers by dismantling and welding work and after continuous work for 3 days o­ne coach becomes suitable to move by road. Then these coaches are moved by Road trailers to Budgam after getting the approval for movement by local administration of J& K govt. Then road trailers loaded with coach are moved o­ne by o­ne to Budgam. At Budgam, Northern Railway has created maintenance facility to provided routine/daily maintenance of these coaches. These dismantled coaches reach to Budgam after completing their long – long journey passing through all type of hurdles like tough terrain, administrative requirements, rain, land slide and snow fall etc. etc. At Budgam, coaches are assembled and these are made fit by Railways Staff for passenger travels.

While assembling of coaches at Budgam, paramount priority of railways is to ensure all the safety requirements of coaches and compliance to all passenger amenity items of coaches.  After the service life of 18 months, for major schedule maintenance, as per requirements, these coaches are required to be moved from Budgam to Charbagh Shop (CB Shop), Lucknow under Northern Railway. However, as coach movement from Budgam to charbagh Lucknow is extremely difficult hence Railways authorities are making their best efforts to attend these coaches at Budgam itself. Major subassemblies like Traction alternators, Traction motors, Wheels etc. are transported to Charbagh Workshop shop for overhaul and o­n completion of overhaul these are transported back to Budgam to fitment in coaches and Major Schedule Maintenance are completed. By this way these DEMU services are continuously in service for last several years.

Due to severe winter, conditions are not favorable to transport these coaches by road o­n the Jammu – Srinagar highway.  Out of these two DEMU rakes (16 coaches) o­nly 4 coaches could be transported from Udhampur to Budgam from Dec 2014 to 13th July 2015. As of now this movement remains a bottleneck for increasing the train services in valley area. As soon as remaining coaches (12 coaches) are transported, Northern Railway will be able to provide more train services in Kashmir Valley area to bring in reliable connectivity and facility to residents of Kashmir, especially during winters when there is no other movement possible except by these DEMU services in the valley.

Brief Background Information:

The Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project has been demarcated into phased programme for convenience in planning and execution and work was started  simultaneously at all locations viz. Udhampur – Katra (25.6km), Katra – Banihal (110.30km), Banihal – Qazigund (17.70km) and Qazigund – Baramulla (118.00km). Three phases have been commissioned while construction work is in progress o­n the Katra – Banihal (110.30km) portion.

 The rail line in the Kashmir Valley was constructed in a phased programme with the Railway steadily commissioning rail sections in different stages, Anantnag and Mazahom were connected in October 2008, followed by Mazahom-Baramulla section in February 2009, and subsequently 18 km long section between Quazigund to Anantnag in October 2009 thus completing the 119 kilometre Qazigund-Baramulla railway line of the Kashmir Valley.  To knit the Kashmir Valley region to the Jammu region, the Railway commissioned the 11.3 km long Pir Panjal Tunnel and opened the Banihal-Qazigund railway section to public on 26.06.2013.

The coaches of the Special DEMU trains have a seating capacity of 90 each, with heating arrangement, wider windows for panoramic view and ergonomically designed cushioned chair etc. for pleasant and comfortable journey. DEMU train is self powered by 2 Diesel Power Cars each fitted with a diesel engine of capacity 1400 HP.